A/N – I'm not a doctor or a nurse or a surgeon so please excuse any mistakes I make regarding the medical treatments/procedures I have included in this story. I researched as best I could but we all know how confusing the internet can be sometimes so please take everything with a pinch of salt and, you know, "artistic licence" and all that. Thanks.
~ Chapter One ~
Allison barely paid any attention to the fact that Kira had just used her bare hands to render the sparking end of the electrical cable safe, instead focusing all of her attention on the vaguely familiar boy who had pushed her to safety at the cost of his own. It was obvious as soon as she dropped down beside him that he wasn't breathing, prompting her to scream,
"He's not breathing!"
Someone dropped down on the boys other side and she found herself facing someone who should have been her enemy but had actually become something of a friend – Derek Hale.
Reaching out he effortlessly rolled the motionless boy onto his back, the simple move revealing the horrific burns covering the exposed skin along one side of his body. When she looked back on this moments in the weeks to come she would be embarrassed by the pathetic whimper she had let out at that moment, her clever mind failing her even as Derek had begun performing CPR on her saviour whilst being careful not to use too much force.
Human bones were so fragile when at the mercy of a werewolf's strength.
"He…he saved my life…"
Flinching away from the clatter of the medical gurney Allison watched, her heart in her throat as Derek finally moved away from her saviour so that he could be lifted up onto the gurney, a nurse immediately climbing up to kneel over his unresponsive body so that she could continue the chest compressions which Derek had started. An arm wound around her waist, steadying her as they wheeled the gurney into the chaotic hospital just seconds after the gurney carrying the ambulance driver who had also been electrocuted was admitted.
"…he saved my life…" she mumbled again, leaning gratefully against Derek's solid body as her legs trembled in a way they hadn't since she's become a hunter, since she'd had to toughen up and put aside displays of weakness. "I don't…I don't even know his name…"
Allison still didn't know his name.
It had been almost 48 hours since the "accident" and Allison still didn't know his name.
No one at the hospital had recognised him.
Nothing appeared when they ran his prints through the system.
Nobody came forward to report a missing teenage boy.
Allison had become a semi-permanent fixture in the hospital, perched on the uncomfortable plastic chairs in the ICU waiting for news about 'John Doe – Electrical Burns' and as such had come to the decision that not only did she hate hospitals (the clinical smells, the strange sounds, the constant activity) but also that the hospital desperately needed some colour.
Everything was either which or duck egg blue, so faded it looked almost grey.
Melissa McCall had been keeping her updated regarding the boys condition as she hadn't been allowed in to see him, the hospitals rule of "family visitors only in the ICU unless otherwise instructed by the patient" still applying despite the unusual circumstances.
Her saviour had suffered moderate and severe burns to almost 40% of his body, specifically his face, neck, torso, right arm, right leg and his feet which had resulted in what Nurse McCall had described as a "worrying amount of damage to his sub-dermal tissue" which had resulted in the surgeon who had operated on him following the "accident" having to debride several of the burnt patches of skin so as to give him a better chance of healing.
Allison had been forced to look up the procedure when the older woman had refused to go into detail and had been horrified to learn that it basically meant that the surgeon had cut away the damaged tissue, stripping away the flesh until he'd reached an undamaged layer.
He'd been placed into a medically induced coma following the surgery and, for the most part, they were pleased with his rate of recovery despite the short passage of time. Melissa had admitted to her, however, that the surgeon was still very concerned about the boys feet which had apparently been unprotected due to the rubber soles of his shoes being riddled with holes. If the wounds to his feet didn't begin to show signs of healing they might be forced to either remove even more flesh or, as a last resort, remove his feet entirely.
It wasn't just 'John Doe – Electrical Burns' that she was worried about, though, as no one had seen or heard from Stiles since he'd fled the hospital prior to the "accident" and none of them could be certain as to what state of mind he'd be in when they did eventually find him.
"Allison?"
Drawn out of her thoughts by the familiar voice she looked up from the floor tile she had inadvertently been staring at for quite some time to find herself looking up at Melissa and Scott, her ex-boyfriend who she still cared for a great deal but didn't love any more.
"I thought I told you I'd call you if anything changes so you could go home," Melissa murmured disapprovingly, shaking her head down at the teenage girl. "You need to rest."
Allison smiled sadly, rubbing the feeling back into her thighs as she rose to her feet in an effort to save herself from getting a crick in the neck on top of her other aches and pains.
"I went home," she admitted, brushing her loose hair back from her face somewhat nervously. "Took a shower. Had a nap. But I couldn't stop thinking about him, about how no one seems to be looking for him. I don't…I don't want him to be alone when he wakes up."
"Have you been in to see him?"
"No," she murmured, meeting Scott's sympathetic gaze as she answered his soft question. "Even though they don't know who he is they won't let anyone but family in to see him."
Scott turned his big brown eyes on his mother who let out a long suffering sigh.
"…be quick…"
Allison's body was practically vibrating with anticipation as she watched the kindly nurse swipe her hospital key card through the reader, the red light flashing green as the door unlocked. Scott led the way inside, pushing the heavy door open with ease. He then held open the door for both his mother and his ex-girlfriend, allowing them to slip into the room.
What she found, though not entirely unexpected, was enough to steal her breath away.
Her saviour was propped up by a mountain of pillows, his body tilted in such a way that the burns covering the majority of his right-hand-side. The skin of his neck and jawline were black, covered in a spiderweb of dark lines, but the skin down his right arm had been completely stripped away leaving only the raw redness of his vulnerable flesh behind. Above the blankets his torso had a few small burns, nowhere near as bad as the others, but the worst by far were the ones on his ankles and feet, exposed at the bottom of the blankets.
…was that bone?
He was hooked up to more machines than she cared to count, each one no doubt doing something highly important, with wires and leads draped all over his body. Most importantly, though, were the IV's pumping fluids into his body along with painkillers and medication to stave of the risk of infection and the oxygen tube to help him keep breathing.
"Is he in any pain?"
"We've got him on the strongest painkillers that we can give him but, given the amount of sub-dermal damage associated with electrical burns of this type, it's probably not enough to completely get rid of the pain he's in which is why we're keeping him in a medically induced coma for the time being," Melissa murmured regretfully, moving to stand at the head of the hospital bed so that she could run her fingers gently through the unconscious boy's dirty blonde hair. "He's got a strong heart, thankfully, as that was something we were worried about to begin with but unfortunately his bones are a little bit on the weak side."
"What do you mean?"
"…the surgeon believes he broke his arm in the fall but I have my own suspicions," Melissa explained, nodding towards the boys unburnt arm which Allison now noticed was wrapped in a plaster cast and resting upon a plump hospital pillow. "It's a nasty break, one which would have taken a heck of a lot of force to cause and he's got some broken and fractured ribs which don't match up with either the electrical shock or the fall he suffered."
"Mum?" Scott frowned deeply even as he reached out to take the boys hand, black lines appearing underneath his skin as he took away some of the pain. "What are you saying?"
Melissa bit her lip.
"He's got healed fractures as well as these recent ones," she explained, nodding towards the illuminated board where a set of x-rays were clearly on display. Allison could picked out the broken arm but not the smaller fractures. "Not to mention a worrying amount of scars…"
"You think he's being abused."
It was a statement, not a question, but Melissa still nodded in agreement.
Allison felt her heart clench at the thought that this boy who had sacrificed himself for her had in fact been coming to the hospital seeking medical treatment for injuries he'd suffered at the hands of an abuser, a friend or a member of his own family. If he was a victim of child abuse it would explain why no one had come forwards looking for him; either they didn't care that he'd apparently gone missing or they were too worried about being found out.
"Have you told anyone?"
"I've asked the Sheriff to stop by when he can," Melissa responded to her soft enquiry, her gazing fixed on the boy's face which had relaxed significantly since Scott took some of his pain away, the furrow between his eyebrows lessening. "I'll explain my suspicions to him, see what he thinks. Of course there's nothing we can actually do until he wakes up…"
Allison hummed softly, vocalising her agreement with the older woman's plan.
"Now the two of you should be getting to school," Melissa murmured firmly, running her fingers through the boy's hair one last time before she began to usher the two teenagers towards the door. "I know you're worried for him but you being here won't help him heal any faster. Go to school. Look after your educations. I'll call you if his condition changes."
She didn't want to go to school.
She knew she wouldn't be able to focus on anything but she was powerless to argue against the strong willed single mother and soon found herself sitting down in her seat for the first class of the day, her books open before her and the teacher rattling of facts and figures.
No one, not even the teachers themselves, noticed the empty seat at the back of the classroom where a boy who's clothes were always torn or dirty would sit in complete and utter silence, his head always tilted downwards so that his messy hair hid his the bruises which were almost a permanent feature on his handsome face as he completed the work.
If they had they would have realised that the boy lying comatose in the hospital was Isaac Lahey, son of the school's former swimming coach who had gone off the rails after losing his wife to a car accident and his eldest son to the war in the Middle East, turning the bottle for help.
But no one noticed…
A/N Phew! Sorry this took so long but I've got this strange little schedule/ritual I keep to when writing my stories in that I work on completing a chapter for a story in a certain order given the number of works in progress I've got going and as this is relatively new this story is rather low down on the schedule. It'll become a higher priority once I complete one of the others though, I promise. In the meantime I'll get updates out when I can. Hope you enjoyed the chapter as it was a tough one to get right. Comments & Suggestions welcome. X